This graduation report covers the process and outcome of developing and designing novel photovoltaic (PV) products for architectural and design applications. The project aimed to find innovative solutions for seamlessly integrating photovoltaics into architecture and design and thus contribute to sustainable building practices. With a hands-on, material-driven approach novel PV customization methods were developed and showcased with a demonstrator. Four concepts were proposed based on PV products made with customization methods that were developed during the project. One of these concepts was worked out into a working prototype. This demonstrated the aesthetic qualities of a novel PV coloring technology. The outcome of Solar Style formed the basis of the continued development and commercialization of PV products.

Every 3 minutes, someone dies in a domestic fire accident. The Comics for Safety Foundation aims to improve worldwide fire safety with the help of entertainment. In this thesis, the effectiveness of the communication strategy Entertainment Education is tested for the use of fire safety. 
A qualitative research was performed on Dutch children between 12 and 15 years old to determine their values and needs during their entertainment consumption. The results included a strong need for self identification in entertainment and the need to share their entertainment with friends and be able to enjoy it together.
A quantitative research was performed on the same target audience to measure how know-ledge, attitude and behaviour are affected by comparing education provided in comic book form versus education provided in plain-text form. It was found that children who read the comic book significantly learned and remembered more knowledge after two weeks compared to the group that received the education in plain-text form.
To create a successful campaign, elements were designed to reinforce the strength of the comic books. An app was designed that functions as a digital reading environment were children can enjoy the comic books together with their classmates, using AR features to enhance the reading experience. The education will be provided via secondary schools on a thematic fire safety day.
The goal for the next five years is to successfully implement the campaign and improve fire safety by reaching 200.000 children in at least two countries.

The current tour in the Rietveld Schröderhouse is outdated. Augmented reality can be the ideal solution to update the tour. This report looks into the possibilities for adding this.

The monthly number of non-western immigrants that applied for a status in the Netherlands has been constantly rising from 955 in May 2021 to 3590 in November 2021 (CBS, 2021). During the first period in the AZC, “newcomers” are purposely distanced from Dutch society. This has as an effect that when they finally get an official refugee status, they have a hard time finding a fitting job. They lack the social network (social bonds, social links and social bridges) that are needed to obtain certain goals or wishes. As previous waves of refugees have struggled to find their role in society, many people consider that the core objectives of integration policies have failed, leaving in their place unfulfilled promises of equal treatment, and polarized or fragmented societies, which strengthens the biases towards newcomers even more (Orton 2012). As social capital is seen as one of the pillars for successful integration (Ager & Strang (2019), the goal of the graduation project at first was to train locals to be active connectors in linking newcomers to their network in order to help them achieve their goals and ambitions. Through conducting desk research, interviews, analyzing existing buddy networks and the mapping of newcomer needs, 10 design principles were distilled that helped to define the final design goal. The research and concept ‘Shadow of the Future’ by Besnick (2000) showed that when referring to or when referred to people need to understand past actions to portray this understanding of the future. This resulted in the finding, that there is not such a thing as training locals to be active connectors but locals should get acquainted with newcomers to a level that they feel comfortable to refer them to their network. Next to this insight, the clustered data gathered through interviews revealed that newcomers experience challenges in paving a new path and setting goals. As newcomers have been raised in a more collectivist culture, they have always acted upon the collective interest. However, with the disappearance of the value of previously obtained degrees and their collective society, awareness of the self and its corresponding goals is crucial, to be alte to function within the dutch individualistic society. The developed concept, namely a personal growth workshop has been designed in a way to facilitate both the creation of a network and the shaping of goals based on ‘the self’. The workshop creates a space in which newcomers and locals meet to partake in a personal growth workshop. Through a mutual goal, a social script and through offering a way to build ‘the shadow of the future’, the outline of a personal development workshop supports the acquaintance process between local and newcomer. This workshop has been prototyped, piloted and evaluated iteratively three times. These pilot’s had been used to evaluate the effects on acquainting and personal growth, but also provided insights to develop the concept further. The findings of these pilots showed that the workshop has had a positive effect on the attitude of locals towards newcomers and that the workshop created more awareness of the self. The pilot has great potential in opening up a network through acquainting, but more research has to be conducted to facilitate the right micro interactions.

The quality of oral care among frail elderly people in nursing homes is low. Due to reduced mobility or cognitive functioning, elderly people fail to complete the oral care ritual sufficiently. Once this happens, caregivers are obliged to take over this task. Unfortunately, in many cases this does not happen due to the difficulty of the task, the uncomfortable feeling of intimacy for both the elderly person and the caregiver, and the high time pressure caregivers experience during the morning care ritual. Dental Robotics aims to improve the quality of care among frail elderly by developing an automatic toothbrush that takes away these pains. The Dental Robotics toothbrush simply requires the elderly person to bite in a mouthpiece. This enables the caregiver to brush all teeth at the same time while applying the right pressure and angle without skipping any teeth. The toothbrush completes this task in only 10 seconds, helping to reduce the total amount of time of the oral care ritual. However, for people with dementia such a product, bringing along new and different interactions, is difficult to comprehend. This lack of understanding can lead to problematic behaviour. This can be apathic, anxious, aggressive or agitated behaviour, all of which is difficult to overcome by the caregiver. Currently, the most common solution that caregivers use to overcome problematic behaviour is skipping the oral care altogether. When this happens, the care ritual cannot be completed. This is a major challenge for Dental Robotics, leading to the following design goal: Increase the acceptance of the Dental Robotics toothbrush among people with dementia and their caregivers, by creating a more pleasant experience for both. Person-centred care is a way to avoid problematic behaviour in the long term. This is an approach that puts the client with dementia in the centre of their own care, and uses the preferences and habits of the client during the care ritual. Since everyone has a different history, the way in which care should be approached should be different for everyone as well. In addition, the symptoms and severity of all clients are different. In order to apply this person-centred care, it is important to have a good understanding of the person in question. Blink is an app that aims to enable caregivers to apply the person-centred approach over the entire care ritual. This is supported by the theory that, when the entire care ritual is executed without any problematic behaviour, the client with dementia will be put at ease and be more prone to accept such a difficult product as the toothbrush. Every time Blink is used for a specific client, the content changes. It will adapt based on the connection between the client and the caregiver, the severity of the dementia and the specific tool preferences for both the caregiver and the client. This helps to keep the use of Blink engaging. Over time, the connection between the caregiver and the client will grow. At the same time, the dementia gets more severe, making it increasingly difficult to connect and have conversations. The focus of the app will be on establishing a connection in the beginning, and slowly shifting towards more active help, such as an easy way to turn on music or videos. Together, this will help to create a more pleasant care moment for both the client and the caregiver, ensuring an increased acceptance of the automatic toothbrush developed by Dental Robotics.

The research on “Accelerating twin transitions through a liminal strategy”, with Barco explores the topic of customer centric sustainability. It addresses the problem of “How might we span the distance between representatives of Barco and the end customers (in the context of sustainability)?“. The proposed solution is a liminal strategy (bridging strategy) and a tactical manifestation of the strategy in the form of an AI-chatbot that facilitates integrated interactions. Unlike the other chatbots, this faces both Barco end customers and Barco employees. These interactions enable Barco to activate customers, collect timely customer input to create value, and make sustainability tangible for both customers and Barco employees. It demonstrates a way to give Barco competitive advantage while increasing Barco’s reputation to drive purpose and profit together.

This report describes VR, its patterns and tools to see more. It starts of by explaining what Virtual Reality means and setting the boundaries for the project. It then continues identifying interaction patterns by covering papers, literature, blogs, interviews and researching actual VR applications on the HTC Vive, Google Cardboard and Playstation VR. After this the direction towards guiding attention is taken as current Head Mounted Displays only allow to see what is in front while virtual worlds allow content all around. Using the work from Stigchel, a theory for guiding attention is set up. Together with other resources, three tools are developed that guide attention to objects outside the field of view in unique ways. An arrow in the peripheral vision, organic lines in the background that converge on a certain point and an animated sphere that moves towards a point of interest. These three tools are tested and evaluated; the arrow is most professional and effective, the animated object is most fitting in VR and very effective, while converging lines are very subtle and not always effective. Recommendations for their implementation are given in the report. Three more tools are developed that do not necessarily guide attention to a specific point, but allow users to be more aware of interesting objects in their environment; a mirror ball that reflects everything behind the user, a radar that helps with orientation and shows points of interest and finally a birds-eye view that allows the user to see the virtual world from up high. These tools are tested and compared with the guiding tools. It is found that participants do not have a preference for any one tool, but do prefer being guided towards an object of interest. The mirror ball is least liked though because the reflection requires more thinking. It could be improved by making it more convex and filtering the image. The radar could be improved by showing distance to objects and showing map elements. The birds-eye view can be improved by showing a miniature world and filtering it so that points of interest are more apparent. The report concludes with sketching a possible scenario in a chemistry lab in which each of the tool is demonstrated.

This thesis describes the design journey that resulted in a post-pandemic vision for distributed teams and the development of a concept to fulfil the lack of spontaneous encounters in hybrid working environments. The research follows two different approaches, the double-diamond and the Dive method and includes extensive literature review, remote user research, future context definition, generative and creative sessions and a final round of ideation, prototyping and testing. The whole process keeps the user experience and interaction at the core of the research. The project involved a Consortium of three experts in the realms of businesses, people perspectives and technology from three different companies: Muzus, Ford and Miro. Their participation was vital to generate knowledge at the verge of their fields of expertise and evaluate the ideas generated during the different phases of the study. The initial section of the project was devoted to understanding the past and the present by focusing on the effects of forced remote working caused by the pandemic through literature research, interviews with experts, workers and students. This helped to identify relevant gaps in knowledge for further research, as well as potential opportunities for design purposes. The first phase highlighted a new way for workers to perceive remote working, an increased sense of responsibility rising from the work from home practice and an evolved connection with the team. To approach the future exploration, a generative session with the experts investigated the insights collected and explored some future scenarios. A series of context factors were used to develop a Future Vision, useful to contextualize the next research steps. Two creative sessions were held to explore the future vision and analyse the differences between hybrid and remote. The last design phase was meant to communicate the future vision by creating a fictional future Magazine published in 2030 and by designing a vision concept, a physical token that connects workers through a virtual office. A proof of concept of the vision was prototyped, showing that it is possible to create serendipitous encounters and connect dispersed workers by means of a physical token and a video call platform. In conclusion, the next future will see a rising trend of hybrid workspaces and, in order to keep the work efficient, it is imperative to facilitate collaboration with the help of people and tools designated for this scope, as well as fulfil the gaps of time zones, cultures and expertises.

Smartphones have revolutionized the way we live, giving us instant access to countless tools and apps (replacing dozens of single-function products), and this has made us more and more dependent on them. But there is another side, they are taking a heavy toll on our time and attention. Unpluq is a startup that aims to help people reclaim their time and attention from their smartphones and improve people's digital wellbeing. It was started by Jorn Rigter and Tim Smits (author of this graduation project). Unpluq’s first product is a physical key that users need to plug into their phone to access distracting apps. This physical distraction barrier changes using distracting apps from a mindless habit into a conscious choice. While the key acts as a successful hardware-based barrier, it is also a limiting factor in the growth of Unpluq, because of distribution and scaling. To overcome these problems this graduation project explores the development of a new software-only version of Unpluq as this opens up easy online distribution. Smartphones have taken over control of our time and attention. It details how social media is hacking our primal brain because the business model behind the attention economy is driven to optimize for engagement, their advanced algorithms are designed to keep users scrolling. The reality is that the majority of the population has become addicted to their smartphone, with screen time reaching a 6-hour average each day in 2022. This leads to negative side effects like decreased mental wellbeing, attention span, self-reported life satisfaction, sleep quality, personal connection, productivity and more. The project then shows the consumers' need for digital wellbeing and how this need can be addressed through the use of tools that leverage behavioural change theories through interaction design. It explores how through the “rational override” behavioural theory it is possible to break the normal flow of smartphone usage, prompting the user to reflect and take conscious action. Although 82% of people aspire to reduce their screen time, they’re struggling to do so. The built-in screen time features are too easy to circumvent, don’t change habits and miss a balance between giving up and having control. From all the gathered quantitive and qualitative research, the graduation project establishes a list of principles of “interaction design for digital wellbeing”. The principles aim to guide interaction designers on designing for healthy digital behaviour by making users conscious, providing tools, setting intentions and finding the right balance between restoration and access to digital distractions. The design process is further guided by the insights from the research phase and follows an iterative process called the “Lean startup method” in which the designer goes through 7 Build /Measure / Learn cycles. The main concept of the app is based on 6 distraction barriers (shaking your phone, tapping buttons and more), which have been carefully designed to find a balance between blocking access to digital distractions, while still allowing access with the right amount of conscious effort. The barriers work in combination with schedules, which let users select what apps are distracting at what time. To access the app within this time frame the user has to go through the “distraction barrier”. The distraction barrier acts as the rational override and helps the user to make a conscious choice: “Is this time well spent?”. The distraction barriers integrate the principles of interaction design for digital wellbeing. It helps the user to make a conscious decision, balances restricting access and control and nudging towards healthier digital behaviour. The app also will include other features that are based on the principles like setting intentions, showing average screen time, time saved by unpluq, nudging notifications and suggested distracting apps. In this graduation project, it has been established that digital wellbeing tools are necessary for overall human wellbeing as we increasingly spend our time in digital environments. Products like Unpluq can help people to improve their digital wellbeing and feel in control of their devices, making sure their time is well spent. This trend will continue to grow over the coming years, when the next major personal computer innovations like VR and AR become mainstream the necessity for digital well-being will only grow.

This Master’s thesis at the Delft University of Technology is executed in collaboration with Fintech company Yellowtail. The assignment was to design a new mortgage application process. The current consumer journey proved to be outdated and a shocking mismatch with the new generation of firsttime buyers. Especially the high costs and the obligation to consult an adviser made the process almost a burden to buy a house. Before any designs were made, the context is explored. The chosen approach consisted of a quantitative and qualitative study. The former revealed the lack of financial knowledge, especially of debts. It also showed the insecurity of consumers and a wrong perception of what the advisers do. Many first-time buyers often consult family and friends but these groups did not seem to be the most reliable regarding their knowledge. In the qualitative study, 5 participants were interviewed who just bought their first house, two of them through an execution only channel. Based on these interviews, the current mortgage application journey is made. Based on the transcripts, 8 codes were identified and placed onto this journey map. The codes were used as needs of the consumer. It exposed which emotions had an effect in which stage of the process. From the qualitative study, two persona’s were created. Together they determine the target group of this project. The design brief in combination with a new journey map showed what had to be designed in the second part of the report. Firstly, a model is made transforming user input into a mortgage advice recommending the best mortgage amount, fixed interest rate and amortization type. Different variables which have an effect on the three advice points are analysed. The model consisted of multiple calculations and boundary conditions. It is an invisible model for the consumer, only the output is shown to them. Secondly, the front end of the system is created in the interaction design chapter. Several ideas were created and tested with consumers in a small user test. Creating overview proved to be more difficult than expected. Also many consumers still had the need of an adviser. Although this might change within a few years with the rapidly evolving artificial intelligence technology, the concept in this report starts with a small role for the adviser. This person will check the application and guide the consumer to the notary. Lastly, a chatbot conversation is written. It is presented as an addition to the interaction design. Literature explained several steps to create a convenient and trustworthy chatbot. A small user study is conducted to determine the best tone of voice. The three elements: the model, the interaction design and the chatbot together form the final design. For technical reasons and limited time they are presented independently. The reports ends with a view on the future and the role of the advisers.

To improve the passenger experience at airports, an environment was designed around a relaxing chair. The goal was to create an environment in which passengers feel free to take some time to relax and forget about the aspects that cause them to experience stress or anxiety. The design is created to make the experience of passengers at airports less stressful and therefore more pleasant. This relaxing chair, the VITA Sentation Lounger, is equipped with the innovative Frequency Physio Support (FPS) technology. The FPS technology stimulates blood circulation, reduces muscle tension and with that it reduces anxiety symptoms, stress and the experience of pain (NEWAS,2018). A usability test with the VITA Sentation Lounger at Rotterdam The Hague Airport showed that the chair itself is experienced as very comfortable and relaxing. However, opinions about the FPS technology differ a lot, and passengers can evenly be divided in the following groups: 1. Passengers who prefer the chair without the FPS technology 2. Passengers who prefer the chair with the FPS technology 3. Passengers who don’t prefer one condition over the other. The usability test also showed that besides having a comfortable chair available, a more private area, having some kind of distraction available and being aware of time is very important for passengers to feel comfortable in the run-up to flying. The one thing passengers worry most about is missing their flight. Literature showed that a passenger brings individual perceptions, expectations and experiences into the environment, which all influence the overall comfort experience (Vink, Bazley & Jacobs, 2016). Additionally, being surrounded by greenery in combination with green and blue colours reduces stress levels (Fjeld, 2000), and the presence of lavender scent (Kristidima, Newton & Asimakopoulou, 2010) and relaxing music (Pothoulaki et al. (2008) and Khalfa, Bella, Roy, Peretz & Lupien, 2003) increases the experience of relaxation. Insights from the usability test and literature research resulted in two concept designs, of which one has been chosen to prototype and test in a second usability test. This concept design focusses on distraction and gives passengers the opportunity to forget about negative experiences and to focus on the positive things that come with the travel journey. The seconds usability test was conducted with a prototype of the chosen concept design. The test showed that the designed environment can contribute to a more comfortable and relaxing experience in the run-up to flying and participants mentioned that they would love to use the design at the airport. Main improvements include the possibility to safely store your luggage, the ability to see if the chair is occupied from the outside, and some problems occurred with unclear or even missing information that was given by the interface (control system). These insights lead to the final concept design that is showed in picture 1 and 2. For further research, it is mainly suggested that the final concept design is being tested at an actual airport with a broad group of passengers and some practical considerations need to be taken into account. Besides, it is very important to start convincing airports and airlines about the benefits the design can bring when it’s implemented in their lounges.

This graduation thesis report describes the research activities investigating the education on filter bubbles in Dutch secondary schools towards teenagers between 14-16 years old, and the design to improve this through including critical thinking techniques. During this research the context and two main target groups were explored through literature research, observations, generative sessions and interviews. Insights from this research led to the design brief containing the design goal, interaction vision, design criteria, and learning objectives. The design brief was formulated after exploring the context, media literacy, and stakeholders and target group. From this research, it was found that Dutch secondary schools are still at the beginning stages of implementing media literacy in itself in their curriculums, which means that filter bubbles are even less discussed in schools. Teenagers are confident about their media literacy and often confuse this with tech-savviness. This results in that they often think they learn more through Social Media. But even though teenagers nowadays in 2021 are raised alongside Social Media, teenagers are not necessarily media literate. Especially when it comes to critical thinking about the media consumed. To stimulate critical thinking in education, pupils have to be encouraged to come up with their own ideas and opinions and be able to discuss the different ideas with other people. Pupils also have to be able to connect subjects to their daily lives. For this to happen, a safe space needs to be created for pupils to be able to share perspectives with each other. Following these insights, the design goal was to design an intervention that can be used as an addition to the “social studies” course in secondary schools in The Netherlands. This intervention should teach teenagers to critically think about the content they consume within their filter bubbles, through meaningful conversations with other teenagers about the content. Ideation involved creative sessions and individual brainstorming and soon went into testing and iterating concepts. The final concept was evaluated with Social Studies teachers and teenagers. In conclusion, the Pop your Bubble: Lesson plan has created an opportunity in class for pupils to explore their own filter bubbles and discuss them with each other. Though further testing in context and research on the long-term effects of this lesson plan is required, teachers and participants agreed that this is a useful way to teach pupils that filter bubbles can have an influence on opinions and that it helps teenagers discuss them.

Death is and endlessly interesting and relevant topic. After all, every human will encounter it one way or another. The common denominator among the many cultural and ideological perspectives on death is the cessation of all biological processes of an organism. But beyond that come rituals, values, and beliefs, all of which are subjective and open to interpretation. This graduation project was about what this subjectivity means for children. Children generally start developing more abstract questions about life and death at the age of 9 to 11. How can we educate children on something that we cannot fully describe and define ourselves? This graduation project was conducted in collaboration with Nederlands Uitvaart Museum Tot Zover, a museum that aims to encourage people of all ages to reflect on death, mortality, and bereavement. For a couple of years, the museum has had the ambition to increase their impact on children’s death education with an experiential concept that operates outside of the museum walls. This ambition aligned with my own in the overall project goal: I aimed to design the narrative concept of a Tot Zover pop-up exhibition for 9- to 11-year-old children about the subjective aspects of death. From the project goal, I derived the main research question: How do 9- to 11-year-old children currently learn about the subjective aspects of death and how could storytelling make a positive contribution? Among other activities, I conducted literature research and contextmapping sessions with schoolchildren. I concluded that children currently learn about the subjective aspects of death – now classified as the psychological and metaphysical aspects – in isolation, since the topic is not often discussed. A positive change could be made through storytelling: telling stories to a group of children invites them to share their own experiences, fantasies, and reflections, which promotes feelings of comfort, and which may enrich the perspectives of the listening children. I used the research insights to form a central theme which the narrative concept should discuss. I defined that the concept should ask children what death means to them instead of teaching them what to think or believe. Children should see that death has many faces and each one may be open to interpretation. Contrary to the current situation, death should not be something the children wish to avoid, but an approachable entity. The concept should present children with a diverse and colorful spectrum of death stories, which may contradict one another or take the children out of their comfort zones. The theme, using the narrative blueprint called the hero’s journey, was implemented in my design goal: to give 9- to 11-year-old schoolchildren space to: (1) explore death stories, (2) embrace that such stories, in their variety, may be authentic and personal, and (3) explore their own stories. I defined that, through the interactions with my concept, children should feel adventurous, imaginative, acknowledged, and connected. The criteria led to the design Mijn Eigen Hein, the narrative concept for an exhibition that travels across locations of the OBA (Public Library of Amsterdam). It is a result of an iterative ideation and conceptualization phase, where developing a detailed narrative was complemented by designing the interactables that would bring that narrative to life. While interacting with the concept, children explore death stories embodied through a collection of 10 Hein masks that represent contrasting perspectives on the subjective aspects of death. They learn to embrace that death can be many things, and that anyone is free to form their opinion. In the climax of their journey, they express their own stories by making their own Hein and add it to the digital collection by scanning it in a presentation ritual. The design outcome is a storyboard of the children’s learning journey, concept art for the exhibition scenography and prototypes of the learning materials and the collection of Hein masks. The concept was evaluated with positive results through a prototype test with schoolchildren and through feedback meetings with experts of experience design. I concluded that Mijn Eigen Hein fulfills the design goal. Children understood the story’s moral, and they could use the mask as a canvas for their personal stories. Although it was found that not all children share their deepest ideas, I argued that even those children learn during the journey by hearing their classmates’ diverse stories. The interaction qualities could unfortunately not be evaluated through the test with children, as I found that they do not yet possess the linguistic skills to reflect on their interactions and experiences on the required level of abstraction. Mijn Eigen Hein has the potential to be a viable way of contributing to death education beyond Tot Zover’s museum walls, by which this project accomplishes its main objective. I would, however, recommend the museum to place the embodiment design concept’s technology high on the priority list. Moreover, Tot Zover will need to attract funding and further develop the narrative with the OBA and possibly other partners if the project is scheduled to launch in September 2023. In its academic context, the project has generated new insight on the merits of storytelling in death education of 9- to 11-year-old children. More specifically, making use of this age group’s inherent fantastical worldview, although controversial in children’s psychology, proves to make an effective and fitting contribution to breaking the death taboo. If the concept was implemented on a large scale, I could imagine that it would help to shape a generation that is open-minded about other death perspectives and that gives death a healthy place in their lives.

As more smart city technologies are being developed, more attention should be directed on how to include citizens to align such technology with public values and facilitate contestability. This involvement can take place during different phases. To ensure the legitimacy of a machine vision system, citizens should be involved to discuss when a model is performing acceptably. However, enabling this civic participation is a challenge due to a lack of awareness, knowledge, and understanding. This graduation project explores opening up the discussion around acceptability of a machine vision system, using the scan car development process in Amsterdam as a use case. This discussion clarified acceptability based on trade-offs made during the development phase. To open up this discussion, citizens first need to be able to understand before they can judge such a system and its trade-offs. This resulted in creating a tangible approach to machine vision development, merging elements from fields as TUI and XAI. The final design was evaluated within three sessions. The results suggest that providing a tangible representation and context-specific examples improved the subjective understanding of participants. The design enabled participants to form and articulate their own opinion about what is acceptable and take part in this discussion. The findings suggest that a tangible approach to participatory machine learning could involve citizens and other non-expert stakeholders in informing and steering a machine vision model during the development phase to close the legitimacy gap. Facilitating this communication, the project shows a possible contestability loop between citizens and developers in the co-construction of public AI. Ultimately, the design contributes to the field of participatory design approaches to public and responsible AI by providing a practical example.

An exhibition in a company museum, Océ museum, is designed in this graduation project. Océ is a global leader in digital imaging, industrial printing, and collaborative business services. The Océ museum was founded since 1983 to show the company history to its customers, fellow workers, and the interested public. In 2015, Océ opened the Customer Experience Center where visitors can experience the latest products and services of Océ. The assignment for this project is to design the presentation for Océ small format printing to connect the Customer Experience Center and to achieve a marketing effect. The research was done on the aspects of company, the market of small format printing, and museum in order to gather content about what can be presented for marketing and get inspired on how to present the content for a better museum experience. Through iterating from content to experience, a concept was proposed to let visitors experience the company’s growth in the changing world. The concept connects Océ museum with the Customer Experience Center by showing the evolvement of Océ’s positioning in the small format market, from office copying to production printing. The marketing effect is achieved by showing the evolvement of copying and printing facilitated by Océ’s remarkable products and unique technologies from diazo copying in the museum to inkjet printing in the Customer Experience Center. Visitors will experience the evolvement personally and have a time travelling from 1960, 1981, 1997 to the current. This experience enables visitors to have a comprehensive view on the company’s development and to witness its perseverance in technology developing and its tradition of innovation. To validate the concept, the experience of copying by Océ 155 and with diazo copying technology in 1960 is detailed. Tests are done to evaluate this experience and recommendations for further develop are put forward based on the test results.

Smart homes have existed for decades, with Bill Gate's home built in 1997 being a notable example. The rapid developments in technology have made all electronics cheaper and made the Internet of Things possible. The Internet of Things has brought many new products and services to the market and revived the dream of a "smart home" for the average person. There seem to be two main types of smart home systems. The first type of smart homes are built using proprietary, subscription-based services and “black box” hardware devices that work exclusively with these services (e.g. Nest and Sonos). This type takes less time to set up, but offers little ability to customize, adapt and control the system. This type also has limited possibilities of combining hardware and services from different vendors, while raising questions about data transparency and privacy. The second type are smart home systems based on open source software (e.g. OpenHAB and Home Assistant), which are typically used by enthusiasts. This type requires a lot of time and specialized knowledge to set up and use, but gives the enthusiasts a lot of control, transparency and full ownership of the system and collected data. While these days enthusiasts have access to a lot more products to build their smart home, they are rarely the sole inhabitants and their co-habitants are not likely to share the same level of enthusiasm for new technologies. Instead of a home making their lives easier, they encounter automated systems that are not tailored to their behavior and that don't react the way they would expect, causing confusion and exclusion. Neither of the two types of smart home systems offer sufficient support for being used and adapted by multiple users with varying needs and skills (such as different family members or roommates). This project investigates how a smart home may combine the control and flexibility of an open source platform with the convenience of a proprietary service-based system, while inclusively catering to a diverse group of inhabitants. See an interactive summary here: graduation.emilflach.com

Successful interfaces have often been the result of powerful metaphors. By likening an unfamiliar context to one we are more familiar and experienced with, it becomes relatable and easier to navigate. With its wealth of sensory stimuli, the kitchen space offers enormous opportunities for the creation of such metaphors. At the same time, the act of cooking is riddled with sensory “black boxes ”: Moments in which little to no information is available to the senses. In the kitchen, those are often caused by literal boxes: Ovens, microwaves, fridges, etc. Whenever these moments occur, the cooking process moves beyond sensory reach. Being deprived of any direct means of probing food throughout the process presents a significant challenge: Clues that would otherwise inform decisions and provide reassurance are no longer intuitively available. The lack of tangible, practical information is a core challenge for the development of future kitchen appliances. This thesis explores multimodality as a tool to resolve the difficulties users are currently experiencing. Multimodal interactions describe interactions that make use of multiple senses at once. By investigating the roles different senses play in human perception, this project builds a repertoire of engaging communication tools. Various techniques are developed to frame information in multisensory ways. By tailoring these techniques to their context of use, they can elicit experiences that are situationally relevant and enjoyable to the user. Using the findings of the multimodal explorations, this thesis developed a concept using haptic, spatial, and visual modalities. The interface of an oven was altered to guide users towards helpful and relevant information. This was done by including a multimodal dial into an oven's display unit. The dial uses its repertoire to expose information on ongoing processes that would typically be out of reach to users . By modulating its stiffness and texture it can, for example, tangibly inform users about the cooking progress. This three-dimensional, dynamic exploration of evolving processes helped users understand their choices and increased their confidence and enjoyment throughout the experience. For a luxury kitchen manufacturer such as Gaggenau developing interfaces that bridge the gap between the sensory, physical world and the digital future of technology is of great importance. This thesis hopefully contributes insights that will help Gaggenau shape the future of the kitchen.

The goal of the project is ‘to make retail areas go from a place to buy to a place to be’. Retail environments have the potential to become a place to be and add value for visitors, the local community and society as a whole. After performing research on various different levels, both quantitative and qualitative and both with consumers and external stakeholders, new consumer vales emerged for retail areas in the city. They were transparency, connection, atmosphere, exploration and authenticity. Exploration and authenticity were chosen as the two core values to form a design direction. A conceptual model was produced to add value to retail areas: in order to create a place to be, a story and an experience are necessary. The story is what brings authenticity to a place, and that can be achieved using storytelling. An experience can be created through multisensory design and can provide the core value of exploration. Using this model, a possible design was created: the story box. This concept provides a multisensory storytelling experience. The story box is a physical cube placed in the street that tells a story through exploration. Users move around the cube to go through the stages of the discovery process: touch, see and hear.The three sides of the cube are assigned with different colors: green, red and blue. Users then can step inside the box and hear the full story. The experience is not just limited to interacting with the cube, it is extended to interacting with the entire street. Both the effect of the authentic stories and the exploring discovery are extended into the street. For the authentic stories, in addition to the large cube, small cubes using the same colors are placed throughout the street at the entrance of shops and stores. Shopowners can participate in the project and adopt a small cube. These small cubes provide the story of the shop or store in audio, once a visitor places its hand inside the cube. For the exploring journey, small colored tiles are placed on the facades throughout the street. The colors coordinate with the colors of the interactions with the cube: touch, see and hear. The small tiles each provide another little discovery journey: green tiles mean there is something nice to touch, red tiles meansthere is something nice to see and blue tiles mean there is something to hear. The final concept gives meaning to retail areas and provides and authentic story in an exploring way.

The aim of this project was to propose several explorative experiential retail concepts which could strengthen and/or induce the value of the physical retail environment for millennials within developing omnichannel strategies. Additionally, such experiences desirably enhanced the bond between consumer, brand, and product through immersive narratives. These should be supported by rich interactions which blend the digital and physical realm.

This thesis aims to help teenagers, aged 14-16, feel confident to express their thought and feelings. By doing so, we aim to create an environment in which teenagers can seek help. Where they can learn how to cope with uncertainties before they turn into bigger and long lasting mental health issues. The thesis does not aim to solve the problem of mental illnesses nor be a solution that prevents it. It aims to create an environment where this changes just enough to move in the right direction and offers a space for solutions with bigger changes. The thesis starts with research. The research phase consists of literature, interviews with people who work with teenagers and a workshop with teenagers themselves. Four cornerstones are selected from the research to build the design upon. These cornerstones are: the tool will help teenagers discover their talents, give them control, show teens they are not the only ones and use gaming to increase motivation. Based on these corner stones the tool is designed through ideation, first testing, development and prototype testing, phase. The tool consists of three elements: a game, amulet and application. The first test consists of 23 teenagers in three sessions in which the assumptions and first ideas are tested. The prototype testing is done during 8 sessions of 6 teenagers. The 48 teens played the game. 42 Interacted with the amulet and 15 offered feedback on the application as well. The teenagers show excitement in discovering their talents through a game. They like the fun and social aspect and the fact that they did not have to assign talents to themselves. However, they experienced that the initial size of the amulet as too big. In the next iteration the size is reduced. Furthermore, the application is given more attention and function. The teenagers express that simply having an object to touch was too abstract. The teenagers also express a need for practicality and understandability. The designed tool helps teenagers discover their talents through a story based game. The game is played with six teenagers and facilitated by a teacher. The teenagers explore these talents over the next week. Through touching the amulet when the teens use their talents, it functions as a non-intrusive cognitive offloading. Later, the app will send a notification and ask them to explain more about the activity during which they used their talents. The app provides guidance in exploring those moments. It breaks the moments up in smaller pieces. It also covers moments in which teens cannot use their talents. After a week, the teenager can use the application and data they stored during a conversation with their mentor. I chose to ask feedback from more teenagers during a short session rather than testing the tool over a week. This is the proposed next step of the project alongside development of the app and working together with experts on the story and questions of the game. The test should be validated to start the implementation phase.